As you can see, I haven't put one of these out for awhile. Writing blog posts, even quick, listy ones, don't serve as a good distraction from J-school work. Still, I did have the presence of mind to note a few stories this week, so you should read these:

I can't decide whether pheromone-based dating events, where people bring sniff each other's lightly soiled clothes to figure out who they're chemically attracted to, is a sign sociopathic practicality, utter desperation, or just a great way to isolate a city's crazies from the rest of the population. Regardless, it's too weird not to read about.

Seriously, though: Food, like fashion, is a largely trend-based industry. Dishes and ingredients championed as haute cuisine get picked up by celebrity chefs, then by food bloggers, then foodies, then chain restaurants and will eventually be available at McDonalds and Taco Bell.

Barb Stuckey works for, Mattson, a food and drink innovation firm, which means she helps most people pick what they're going to order, cook and crave without them even knowing it.

Wilfred Rose was one of the top 50 pickpockets in New York, hunted by every plain-clothes officer in the whole city. For better or worse, that doesn't really mean what it used to: Nobody carries cash anymore. Finally caught, this loose account of the old-fashioned pickpocket's life likens Rose to a grand-master, rather than a petty crook.

Editor-at-Large Chris Plante compares the realities if his digital life on Twitter to the realities a living in New York. Twitter is a different place for "media professionals" than for the average person. If you aren't one of those people — a media producer or a Twitter user — the piece will probably make Twitter sound terrible, which is why his analogy is 100 percent right.

As a news-blogger/digital journalist, I spend most of my day reading stories online. "In Case You Missed it" (ICYMI) collects some the best posts and stories published this week (or at least the ones I saw) so I can say all that aimless reading was good for something.